He's In My Head
by dysprositos
Summary: Clint thought he was done with Loki. Thought Loki was gone, that it was over, that he'd never have to deal with him again. He was wrong.


**Warnings: language, mostly.**

**Thanks to my beta, irite, for beta magic.**

**I do not own The Avengers.**

* * *

Things were okay at first. Why wouldn't they be? Sure, Clint felt...gross. Violated. Loki had been in his mind, using him like a puppet. But Clint was determined to put that behind him. Loki had been in his head. He was gone now. End of story.

That's how Clint dealt with unpleasant things. He put them behind him. Always had, probably always would.

So everything was fine. At least, everything was fine after a quick trip to medical (and a couple dozen stitches for him; significantly fewer for Nat. Clint didn't think that was fair...but then, she didn't break a window…with her body). Clint ate his shawarma with everyone else (and nobody commented on the leg he had propped on Nat's chair, seeking reassurance that she was _there_), and there was nothing wrong. They'd come out on top, stopped an alien invasion, and had Loki locked up in maximum security at SHIELD.

It was great. Really.

The debriefings that evening were surprisingly short. Just the bare bones necessities to get everyone on the same page for Loki's departure the next morning. After that, everyone went their separate ways for the night.

Clint went back to his rooms at SHIELD, the ones he stayed in when he wasn't on a mission somewhere else. 'Home,' really, or the closest thing he had to one, with a bed and a bathtub and Nat a couple of floors away. He made his way to the bathroom and turned the shower on. He stripped out of the grimy uniform he'd been wearing, tossing it indifferently into a corner.

Then he stood under the spray, letting the water wash away the dirt and blood that had somehow worked its way under his clothing. He was too tired to move, too tired to think, too tired to do more than lean his forehead against the wall of the shower and wait for the hot water to run out.

Once it had, he shut the water off and got out, wrapping up in a towel and slumping into his bedroom. There, he found some clean boxers and put those on before flopping onto his bed, discarding the towel in the middle of the floor.

He'd missed his bed while he'd been away, first at his scientist-babysitting assignment and then with Loki.

Clint was exhausted, every bone in his body aching, his eyelids almost impossibly heavy. The way he figured, the last time he'd slept had been before Loki had decided to take his body for a joyride. He didn't remember eating or sleeping while he'd been with Loki. Of course, he didn't remember much of that time. Most of it was blank, his memory filled largely with pale blue light in the spaces between seeing Loki step out of the portal and waking up in the hospital bay on the SHIELD Helicarrier.

Most of what had happened was gone, but not all of it.

And so when Clint did not immediately fall asleep, despite his exhaustion, he attributed it to that. To the memories that were swimming, one at a time, to the front of his mind.

Bad memories. Violent ones. Memories that he wished, more than anything, were nightmares.

But he was not sleeping.

This was irritating. After all, it was over. Done. None of it had been his fault, so _why _couldn't he sleep? Why couldn't he just let it go?

The night grew longer, and still Clint did not sleep, lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, seething. Soon, the night faded into dawn, and his room was filled with the pale grey light of early morning.

Not long after that, it was time to face the day. In fact, it was past time to face the day.

Great, he was going to be late to the send-off party for the megalomaniacal demigod. Which was just how he wanted to spend his morning. Wonderful. He considered skipping it, but Nat would never forgive him for missing something like this. Or for making her go alone. Besides, maybe this would be the final step in shoving this—whatever _this_ was—firmly into the past.

So ignoring the very vocal part of him that wanted to see Loki about as much as he wanted to give himself oral surgery, Clint dragged himself out of bed, stiff, sore, his head throbbing in rhythm with his elevated heart rate. He found a pair of pants that looked reasonably fresh, and a t-shirt that wasn't stained, and he pulled those on. Then he grabbed the first pair of boots he came across and tugged those on, sitting on the edge of his bed. Then he added a jacket on top, because he wasn't sure if it was warm out or not and didn't care enough to check.

Before he ran out the door, he caught his reflection in a mirror and stopped. He looked like shit, with dark circles under his eyes that made it look like he'd been punched in the face.

So he threw some sunglasses on, too, before surveying the final product.

_Yeah, Barton, looking real suave_.

Natasha was waiting for him impatiently in the garage—where they'd agreed to meet—next to one of the company cars, a brown bag dangling from one hand. She took in his appearance and more or less echoed exactly what Clint had been thinking a few minutes ago. "Nice, Barton. Has that outfit been on your bedroom floor since you left for New Mexico?" Then, looking at him more closely, "You look like hell."

He knew that. But he didn't want to talk about it, did not, in fact, want to even _think _about it, so he just slid wordlessly into the passenger's seat.

Natasha took the hint and drove them to Central Park, letting the radio fill the silence between them.

Seeing Loki off was about what Clint had expected it would be. There was one tense moment where Loki met his eyes and Clint felt his chest seize up, felt himself preparing to launch himself fist-first towards Loki's face, but then Nat was whispering in his ear about what sort of treatment Loki could expect back home, and Clint was smirking imagining it, and then Loki was gone.

Just gone.

But things are never that simple, are they?

Afterwards, when he and Nat were heading back to SHIELD, for the real debriefings this time, Nat cast a sideways glance at him. "You okay?"

He wasn't. He was more tired than he'd ever been in his life, and he could barely think over the throbbing in his head, and most of his joints were in the process of stiffening up, but he managed a terse nod. "Let's just get this over with so I can get some damn rest."

He hoped that now, now that he'd seen Loki leave with his own eyes, he _could _sleep.

They were in meetings for most of the day. Mostly, it was terrible. Clint didn't think he was imagining the hostile stares the other agents were shooting him, and more than once Fury had cut a speaker off with a sharp gesture and a glare. The whole thing made Clint acutely aware that he had been their enemy, if only for a short time, and that he was not going to be forgiven easily for what he'd done.

Perhaps not at all.

Considering it supposedly 'wasn't his fault,' he found that distinctly unfair.

Around 4:30 PM, after they'd been at it for hours, things finally wrapped up.

Before Clint could slip out the door, though, Natasha hot on his heels, Fury beckoned the pair of them over. He informed them, "You two are on leave for the next two weeks. Keep a low profile, I don't want to see either of you anywhere. Not on the news, not on the surveillance footage from Starbucks. And for God's sake stay out of trouble."

Clint was so exhausted that he thought himself entirely capable of sleeping for the entire two weeks and thus did not find Fury's request particularly unmanageable. He offered a nod, and Natasha did the same.

Then, blessedly, Fury let them go, turning back to whatever it was that he was doing.

On the way back to their barracks, they stopped in the cafeteria for some bland, tasteless food. At least Clint thought it was bland and tasteless. Consequently, he didn't eat much, despite Nat's increasingly-frequent concerned looks. At one point, she asked, "Aren't you hungry?" but Clint was so tired that the idea of eating made him want to gag.

He expressed as much, and she didn't comment again. When she'd cleared her tray, Clint mumbled, "You done?" while resisting the urge to let his head drop onto his folded arms.

He was ready to get started on his two-week nap. More than ready.

At her affirmative, the two of them made their way back to their rooms.

They paused outside Clint's door. Natasha bit her lower lip before she stated bluntly, "Get some sleep, okay? You look terrible."

Clint nodded. He _wanted _to, more than anything. It wasn't like he'd stayed awake all night (or for the last couple of days) for _fun_.

Natasha didn't look satisfied. She didn't look happy. And then, even though she _had _to know how little Clint wanted to talk (because they were exactly the same in that regard), she asked, "Are you okay? Really okay? I don't care what those assholes today were implying, what happened, you know, it wasn't—"

Clint, for some reason, didn't want her to finish that sentence. He _knew _it wasn't his fault, damn it. The more people said it, the harder it was to believe. "Yeah, I know. Look, I'll be fine. I just need to sleep."

Natasha hesitated, and Clint added, "Really."

With a curt nod, Natasha turned and strode down the hall towards the stairs to her own rooms.

The whole interaction was more or less an accurate summary of their entire relationship.

Stumbling into his quarters, Clint barely managed to kick his boots off at the door before he was hurrying towards his bed. He collapsed onto it with a huge, relieved sigh.

But still, he could not sleep. Alone, with nothing to distract him, his mind replayed the same visions over and over again, his memories mashed up with scenarios of his own creation to fill in the gaps. All of his efforts to quiet his mind were fruitless, and after a couple of hours (endless, dragging hours) Clint gave an annoyed huff and swung his legs over the side of his bed.

This shit had to stop.

If only because he didn't know how much longer he could take the living-color slideshow.

It wasn't his damn fault. It was Loki's damn fault. Loki. And now Loki was gone. So it was over. And he just needed to get _over _it already, god damn it.

Clint made his way through the darkened apartment towards his tiny kitchenette. In one of the cabinets by the fridge, he found the half-full bottle of what passed for (on his budget) the 'good' whiskey.

It wasn't really good enough that it needed a glass. Not really. So Clint took a swig straight from the bottle.

Then, just to be safe, he took a couple more. You know. Just to make sure he had this under control. He didn't want to have to get up again, once he'd laid back down.

He finished the bottle, actually, before he set it down on the counter and made his way back to his bedroom and dropped down on the bed.

Now, the room was spinning in a slow, lazy circle. Which was surprisingly soothing.

This time, Clint fell asleep almost instantly.

* * *

When he thought about it later, there was a lot that didn't make sense. But at the time, he hadn't been thinking. He'd just been just reacting.

After falling asleep, Clint was awakened some unknown amount of time later by a soft, oily voice in his ear.

A voice he thought he'd never hear again. At least, he'd hoped.

Oh, he'd hoped.

"Hello, Barton."

Loki.

Clint recoiled away before his eyes were even open, launching himself clear off his bed. As he crashed into the wall and scrambled to his feet, he saw a shadow of movement out of the corner of his eye. He dodged, lurching across the room towards the gun he kept in his top dresser drawer.

"Stop."

That was all it took. Completely against his will, Clint did as Loki commanded. He stood frozen in the middle of his bedroom, heart hammering in his chest, breathing heavily through his mouth.

_Oh shit oh shit oh shit, _he thought to himself, unable to move. _He's got me again and I'm going to—_

"Now, Barton, is this any way to greet an old friend?" Loki's voice continued from behind him. Clint could hear Loki's voice moving as he circled around the room. "And I thought you would be happy to see me again, after our time together. After all the fun we had."

Clint wanted to puke, could taste the bile rising in his throat. He felt his knees buckling, but he didn't fall. He remained upright, stiff, and a moment later, Loki rested one heavy hand on his shoulder and breathed into his ear, "My, my, what _shall _we do now?" He stepped back and mused, "I personally feel that we should go play with Agent Romanoff, yes?"

Nat had mentioned her 'conversation' with Loki during the debrief, telling everyone how she'd manipulated the demigod into giving her information.

Obviously, being played had not sat well with Loki. And now he wanted revenge. On Nat. On him. Probably on anyone else who got in his way.

No. Loki wasn't going to get his revenge. Even if he was mind controlled or what the fuck ever this was, Clint wasn't letting this bastard anywhere _near _Natasha. Or anyone else. Not while he still had breath in his body.

And like that, the spell Loki held over him was broken. Clint lunged forward, going for his gun. He heard Loki behind him, laughing, but nothing halted his progress, no spells, nothing. Moving quickly, Clint slammed the door to the bedroom, trapping Loki inside with him, then pulled the weapon out and whipped around to face Loki's voice.

He fired three shots in quick succession. They exploded in the small space, the noise enormous and crushing. But Clint's aim was, as always, perfect, even going from sound alone, and the shots were aimed exactly where he knew Loki was standing.

The shots should have hit him. Would have. Except...there was no one there.

_Where did he _go_?_

Clint had exactly five seconds to ponder this, five tense seconds as he listened to the silence, sweat dripping down his face, before the pounding started on his front door. Likely, it was a response to the deafening noise of the gun in such close quarters. The noise made it hard to hear anything at all, even the noise from the hall was muffled.

But then: "Over here, Barton," came a low whisper from behind him.

A brief, fleeting thought—_how can you hear that over the ringing in your ears_—and then Clint was back in motion.

He turned, eyes wide, gun held in front of him, but he couldn't see anything. No movement, no shadows.

_Loki must be invisible_.

_But you saw him a minute ago._

_Didn't you?_

Clint didn't want to take the time to puzzle that out. Not right now. Not with so much at stake. He could think later. Once Loki was gone.

The pounding on the door grew more insistent, accompanied by yells, now. Then, Clint heard the distinctive sound of his front door being broken down.

Damn it.

Whirling around, he threw the lock on the bedroom door before leaping across the room and somersaulting across his bed and into a corner, all the while waiting to feel Loki's hands on him, or for a spell or _something _to stop him.

Nothing did. So Clint raised his gun again. He heard what sounded like someone moving by the dresser, so he fired a shot towards it.

_Now you're not even trying, Barton_. _Get it together!_

The only response was a low chuckle, now on his right. And, well, the fists on the bedroom door. The sound was growing in intensity, pounding in Clint's ears, mixing with the yelling, with the noise from the gun, and he couldn't _hear _and he couldn't _think_ and he didn't know where Loki was.

Only that he was here, somewhere. Hidden.

From outside the door, one voice rose above the others.

Nat.

And she was yelling, "So help me Barton, if you don't open this door, I'm gonna kick it down!"

Clint froze. She couldn't come in here. Not with Loki hiding, sneaking around. Loki was _invisible_, could snap Nat's neck before she even knew he was here. Clint had a lot of faith in Nat, but invisible enemies? That was asking too much of anyone.

That thought broke his stupor, and he yelled back, "No! Don't! Don't come in here!"

"What is it?" she yelled back, concerned now.

"Oh yes, Barton, do tell her who has come to visit," Loki murmured, now on Clint's left, so close that Clint could feel the demigod's warm, moist breath on his neck. Clint lashed out with the fist that wasn't holding the gun, but hit nothing except empty air. Loki laughed again.

"Clint? God damn it, open this fucking door!"

But Clint couldn't. He couldn't move. He was frozen, staring at the last place he'd heard Loki's voice.

Behind him, he heard a boot impact his front door, near the door knob.

Damn it, she couldn't take 'no' for an answer, could she?

"Nat, stay out of here! It's—"

The bedroom door exploded inwards.

There was a solid three seconds of silence, and then Natasha's concerned voice asked, "Clint, what is it?"

* * *

Focused as he was on the dresser, Clint couldn't see the look on her face, or the similar expressions on the agents who had backed her up on this little 'mission,' but they were all showing the same mixture of puzzlement and concern. Because Clint, barely 24-hours free from being compromised, was currently standing in a corner of his darkened bedroom, pointing a loaded gun at nothing.

Clint did not answer Natasha's query immediately, instead remaining frozen, his posture so stiff that Natasha could see his shoulders were starting to shake. Then he choked out, "It's Loki."

Natasha was immediately on her guard, even though she couldn't see the demigod. Even though she knew they'd sent him off to Asgard that morning. Even though the room looked completely empty from her perspective, save Clint in the corner. Stranger things had happened, and maybe Loki _was _there. So she asked, "Where?"

Suddenly, Clint whipped around to his right. He fired a shot, and Natasha (and her entourage) all flinched backwards, away from the noise.

"Over there," Clint gestured with the gun. "Somewhere. I can't see him, but he's laughing at me."

There was no one there. And Natasha couldn't hear anything.

Still, she needed to give him the benefit of the doubt. If Loki was really here, then they had a serious problem.

With a gesture, she indicated that the other agents should stay back, and she took a couple of cautious steps forward, ready to go for her own weapon if the situation merited it.

"Clint," she said softly, approaching him, on guard in case anything tried to stop her. Now in the room, she could see that it was empty but for the two of them. But then, Clint said that Loki was invisible...

He also said Loki was laughing, though, but the room was silent except for Clint's harsh breathing.

Clint didn't lower his weapon. "Nat, stay back," he cautioned. "Loki's pissed off at you, and—"

He cut himself off, head cocked to one side as if he was listening to someone. Then he picked up, "He says he's going to—can't you hear him?"

She couldn't. Because she was just about one hundred percent certain that Loki wasn't here. He would have attacked by now, if he was—he wouldn't pass up this situation, not if he so clearly had the advantage over them and was, as Clint said, pissed at her. So he wasn't here. At least, not physically. But it was still possible that Loki was managing some kind of psychic link, a remnant of the mind-control. And if that was the case, she'd have to feel around for it. Natasha answered, "No, I can't hear him, Clint."

_How can I figure out if it's actually Loki talking to him?_

With a disbelieving expression, Clint's eyes darted between Natasha and where it seemed like he believed Loki to be standing. "You're kidding."

"I'm not," she replied calmly. Then she had an idea. Something that could clear this up. "Clint, have Loki tell you what I said to him when we uh, talked."

"What?" Clint sounded confused, but then he supplied, "He says...you wanted information."

That was vague. Un-usably so. Natasha prompted. "Specifically. Ask him...ask him what I said about love."

Clint's expression turned completely blank. "Love?"

"Yeah, Clint. Love. Come on."

Several beats of silence, and then, "He doesn't know what you mean."

Natasha breathed a small sigh of relief, even if this situation did not strictly merit it yet. The real Loki would know what she'd said. Would relish the opportunity to throw it in her face, right here, right now. Saying he didn't know...that meant that this wasn't Loki doing some kind of mind link mumbo jumbo.

No, Clint had a different problem. A non-magical, regular human problem.

So she hopped across his bed and leaned in close to him, and placed her hand over his arm, forcing it down to his side. "Clint. Loki's not here." She looked over her shoulder at the other agents in the doorway and mouthed, 'Someone call medical.' Then she turned back to Clint. "He's not."

Clint gave a disbelieving snort, twisting out of her hold. "No. He's here. Nat, he's _laughing_, and he says he's going to—" he couldn't finish the sentence. Whatever 'Loki' was saying must have been pretty disgusting.

"If he was going to do anything," Natasha pointed out in a reasonable tone, "He would have done it already. But he hasn't."

"Because I'm—"

"Clint. He's not here. Look." Natasha stepped out from where she was standing next to him and crossed the room to where Clint's wide-eyed stare indicated he believed Loki to be.

Nothing happened. At all. Because Loki wasn't there.

Now Clint just looked confused. He looked at the spot next to Natasha, then to Natasha, then back to the empty space. "Nat, I can _hear _him..."

_That's because you're having a psychotic episode_. But she didn't say that. She just stated, "He's in your head, Clint."

"He's in my...head?" He looked momentarily horrified, and Natasha knew what he was thinking—the mind-link, psychic residue thing. So she clarified quickly. "He's not _real_, Clint."

Natasha could hear the people from medical pushing through the crowd outside. She walked back over to Clint, grabbing him around the wrist and tugging him over to his bed. She pulled the gun out of his now-loose grip, setting it aside, out of his reach. "It's okay. Just relax."

He didn't seem inclined to—and after what Natasha had just revealed to him, she didn't blame him, not really—but she pushed him back so he was lying down anyway.

The medical officers bustled in then, dropping their bags on the floor and spreading out to get to work.

Natasha took the opportunity to disperse the audience. "I'll be right back," she told Clint, before herding everyone out of the apartment and back into the hallway. When all of the onlookers had been chased away, she came back into the apartment, closing what was left of the door behind her and making her way to the bedroom.

"He needs to be in medical," one of the medics told her as she entered the room.

She nodded. "Yeah. Just...give us a minute, okay?"

While she'd been gone, the medics had obviously dosed Clint with something, given the way his eyelids were drooping and how he'd gone limp on top of his bed. Still, when she approached, his eyes wandered over to her, and he looked momentarily urgent. "Nat?"

"Yeah?"

"Loki. He's—"

"He's not real, Clint. He's in your head." Maybe if she kept repeating it, it would stick.

Clint let his eyes drift shut and gave a low chuckle. "Yeah. What else is new?" Then, dead serious, "But is he ever not gonna be there? 'Cause I thought he was gone."

_That_, Natasha thought, _Is a good question_.

One she didn't have an answer for.

* * *

A couple of days later, when Clint was more or less back to 'normal,' he of course didn't remember what had happened. In fact, when Natasha filled him in, he almost died of embarrassment, turning a deep shade of red she'd never seen on him before.

"Reactive psychosis," the shrinks told him during one of his now-mandated sessions, "Is perfectly understandable, given the circumstances."

Clint didn't know if he agreed. He didn't know if these circumstances had _anything _understandable about them.

Natasha had a more practical insight. "Maybe you shouldn't treat your insomnia with cheap booze when you haven't slept in four days and are emotionally disturbed, Barton."

Whatever.

Really, when it came down to it, what he brought home from the experience was that one, he had a lot of shit he needed to deal with. He couldn't apparently just decide 'what's done is done' and have it over with. It had worked in the past, but apparently wasn't going to cut it this time.

And two, well...

Loki was in his head. And he wasn't going to be as easy to evict as Clint had thought.

* * *

**Thanks for reading!**

**Review if you're so inclined. Reviews are good for the environment. Yes.**


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